


where we came forth/and once more saw the stars

by pentaghastly



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-19
Packaged: 2018-03-08 04:36:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3195539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentaghastly/pseuds/pentaghastly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That anyone could look at him and not see what the Inquisitor sees - see the sunshine, see him paint the moon and the stars in the sky, see the softness in the curl of his lip and his slightly-crooked bottom tooth, see the wrinkle above his nose and the furrow in his brow when the thoughts were coming to him so fast that even Dorian himself could not keep up - that anyone could not see these things and love them (or perhaps worse, that the man himself could see them and not think himself worthy of love) is enough to break him every time.</p><p>He loves him, he knows, and if it is the only thing he ever knows again he thinks it might be enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	where we came forth/and once more saw the stars

> “since feeling is first  
>  who pays any attention  
>  to the syntax of things  
>  will never wholly kiss you;
> 
> wholly to be a fool  
>  while Spring is in the world
> 
> my blood approves,  
>  and kisses are a far better fate  
>  than wisdom  
>  lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry  
>  \--the best gesture of my brain is less than  
>  your eyelids' flutter which says
> 
> we are for eachother: then  
>  laugh, leaning back in my arms  
>  for life's not a paragraph
> 
> And death i think is no parenthesis”  
>  e.e. cummings

 

They are new to this, both of them.

Dorian is new to a promise of forever, to a lover who has not parted with the rising sun, to placing his heart in the hands of another and not having it returned a little smaller, a little weaker, a little more broken every time. He is new to trust, to companionship, to _love_ , to the possibility that he might look at someone as if they kept the world spinning, to the possibility that they would look the same way back.

And he…he is new to it all.

He is new to the flutter in his chest, the tremble of his hands, is new to the way he spends his days walking through a fog, to the thoughts that follow him about like ghosts - _Dorian_ , he thinks, and the name is like a prayer. _Dorian_ , and he forgets how to breathe, how to speak, how to be.

It is not something he thinks he could speak aloud. It is not something he thinks that words would be able to express - he wonders, absently, if the things which he feels have ever been felt before, or if they are uniquely theirs, uniquely his, and although he does not know if such a thing might possibly be true, he likes to think that it is.

....

Dorian asks him, once, in a tangle of sheets and limbs and starlight, about his love.

There is insecurity in the question, hidden beneath the bravado, beyond the desire to hear a compliment - it is as if he is giving him a reason to leave, as if he might not be able to come up with a reason good enough and then realize it is because he does not love him at all, because there was nothing there for him to. Absurd, ridiculous, unthinkable, that any single person could look at the man in his arms and feel nothing but want, but desire, but an affection, a passion, a love so deep it stuns them down to their very core. 

That anyone could look at him and not see what the Inquisitor sees - see the sunshine, see him paint the moon and the stars in the sky, see the softness in the curl of his lip and his slightly-crooked bottom tooth, see the wrinkle above his nose and the furrow in his brow when the thoughts were coming to him so fast that even Dorian himself could not keep up - that anyone could not see these things and love them (or perhaps worse, that the man himself could see them and not think himself worthy of love) is enough to break him every time.

But he is a quiet man, inelegant and graceless in his words, and he does not know if he would be able to do these feelings - to do _Dorian_ \- justice.

“Do I need a reason?” he asks, not deflective but confused - in his mind, the question defies logic.

“Are you telling me you can’t think of one? I’m extraordinary! I’ve already thought of twenty, and the list is still growing.”

“Twenty reasons why you love me?”

“Don’t be foolish, Amatus. Twenty reasons why _you_ should love _me_ \- well, thirty now.”

He is tempted to laugh, but he thinks better of it when his eyes find Dorian’s - shaded by twilight, they are dark, but they are, he knows, _afraid_ , and he wants to sooth the fear with sweet whispers and tender kisses and a gentle touch, but this is a time when words will speak louder than action, and for Dorian, for _him_ , he shall try.

And so he takes the scattered pieces of his thoughts and tries to form them into something...whole.

...

He loves him, he discovers, both for the soft velvet of his lips and the iron of his tongue.

If he had thought Dorian might be any less of a force, any quieter of a storm inside the bedroom than out, he had been a fool; he is all teeth and nails, all sharp-claws which mark his back like a canvas - _mine_ , he demands, with scratches and bites, and he always leaves a mark, but Trevelyan does not mind. How could he possibly? The next morning he runs a trembling finger down each line and Dorian seals each wound with a loving kiss.

They love - oh, do they love - but they do not _make_ love; they fuck.

Except for the times when they don’t.

Except for the times when they go slow, delicate - when they learn each other’s bodies as if they are learning a new language, what makes them gasp, what makes them scream, what makes them dig their hands into the sheets and plead for _more, closer, never leave, never stop_. They fuck and it is like a battle, a contest, a spar; they make love, and it is like coming alive and coming undone and coming _home_.

He loves him for both the fire and the silk and the crystal grace of his touch.

He loves him for the nights when he is too broken to kiss, too scared speak, too empty to cry - the nights when he is too battered, too bloody, too bruised to do anything but be held, when Dorian’s arms hold his shattered bones together like a cast and does not ask, does not _try_. He loves him for the times he comes close to the edge, too close, and it is Dorian’s hand that keeps him from falling over, Dorian’s touch, Dorian’s words - it is _Dorian_ , and he loves him for that, as well, for the simple fact of his existence.

He loves him for the simple fact that Dorian has found him worthy of his love in return.

“What did I do to deserve you?” he wonders aloud, endlessly, daily, far too often, but the question is genuine, and he thinks that he must know the answer - nothing at all. He does not deserve him, does not believe that there is a man in this world who can, who can be worthy of the sweetness of his breath and the music of his voice and the tremor of his laugh, and if there is such a man, it is certainly not him.

They kiss - quick, but not chaste, never chaste, because the instant their lips meet it is impossible not to want, crave, _more_ \- and Dorian grins, pleased, loving, awed.

“Nothing at all,” but the words are not unkind or mocking or cruel, rather the opposite; they are buried deep in emotions Trevelyan cannot begin to identify, does not want to try - they are Dorian’s and Dorian’s alone, but he knows his love well enough to he think he may be beginning to understand. “All you have to do is exist, and I’m yours.”

They are new to this, the both of them, unsure and graceless and fumbling in the dark, but somewhere along they way they have found the other’s hand, and somewhere along the way he found himself forgetting how to be afraid.

He loves him, he knows, and if it is the only thing he ever knows again he thinks it might be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> this is super short, but i seriously can't stop writing them. as always, comments/kudos are an absolute delight xx


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